Blackfin Sky (2 page)

Her eyebrow arched upward. ‘Twentieth of November.’

‘And how old are you?’

‘You
know
how old I am.’

‘Just … just humour me, okay?’

Sky sighed, but she was ready for this prank to be over with, so she played along. ‘Sixteen. Sixteen years and three months, to be exact. And you’re being ridiculous.’

Sean seemed to deflate. ‘I thought this could all be explained if you’d been in a hospital, ill or something. But that couldn’t be … where the
hell
have you been?’

She shivered, hugging her arms inside her red coat. ‘All right, Sean. You got me, you all got me. Ha ha, it was hilarious. Now can you stop being weird?’

Without taking his eyes off her, Sean opened the back door of his jeep and rummaged around blindly until he found what he was searching for. He stalked over to her, not quite eye-to-eye, even with her heeled boots. For the briefest moment, Sky thought he was going to kiss her. But as many times as she’d thought that, as many times as Sean had joked about it, he never had
.

Sigh.

Then she felt the jacket he was holding being wrapped around her over her own coat like a cloak, and he stepped back again.

‘Whatever happened to you,’ he said quietly, ‘you’re safe now. I’m going to take you home, and it’ll be all right.’

There was something about the quiet intensity of his voice that left no room for argument, although she was still completely baffled by his, and everyone else’s, behaviour. Sky climbed into the passenger side of his car and said nothing while he drove, the rain beating a rhythm against the windshield like an
SOS
.

‘Yes, Mrs Rousseau, I realise you’re at the salon, and I’m sorry to inter—’ Sean let out a breath through his nose and closed his eyes. ‘Mrs Rousseau, I wouldn’t call if it wasn’t an emer—’ He held the phone away from his ear. When Sky caught his eye, he stuck his tongue out at her and she laughed. She could hear that her mother’s facade had slipped, unleashing a torrent of very unladylike curses.

He turned away and put the handset back to his ear.

‘You need to come home now, Mrs Rousseau … yes, I realise that … no, I can’t tell you why over the phone. Look, I’ll see you when you get here … yes, I am in your house. No, I haven’t touched your guest towels. I—’

But Sky knew that her mother had already hung up and was no doubt screeching from the salon with foils still in her hair at that very moment. Her mother had many issues, and Sean was one of them. Or more specifically, the fact that Sean had not grown up in Blackfin was one of them. Yet Sky herself had always found Sean’s non-Blackfinity to be rather appealing. As much as she loved the town whose inherent oddness had spawned the majority of her own, the advent of a newcomer held a certain charm.

It took a particular kind of moxie to wear an array of cast-off cardigans with no hint of irony or apology; more so when starting a brand new school in a brand new town. Of course, had anyone broached the subject with Sean Vega, he would simply have shrugged his becardiganned shoulder and offered a smile which would no doubt have crinkled the very corners of his brown eyes in a most appealing manner.

He was an impossible boy at times.

Sky’s mother, on the other hand, could not fathom why Sky had become friends with the Vegas – Sean and his younger sister, Cameron. Lily Rousseau had commented to her daughter on more than one occasion that she should
stick to her own kind.
The words had bothered Sky immensely, but at the same time, a part of her understood her mother’s meaning. In a town like Blackfin, a few idiosyncrasies went unnoticed. Beyond its limits, however, a Blackfinite would be subject to far less welcome scrutiny.

As though he’d read her thoughts, Sean set the phone down and turned to Sky with a wry smile. It faded too quickly. ‘The last time I spoke to your mum was at your…’ She waited for him to finish, but the sentence seemed caught in his throat. He coughed to clear it, then drew a strawberry lace out of his pocket and chewed on it. Normally the lace would have disappeared in the Blood House – the residence which had once belonged to the town’s butcher – either by Lily’s machination or the house’s own quiet intolerance of junk food. So Sky knew something had to be terribly wrong as Sean sat there chewing thoughtfully on his red liquorice.

‘What’s going on? Are you feeling okay?’ she asked, finally unable to take the silence. Even the house was unusually quiet, like it was frozen in shock.

Sean moved slowly to the loveseat facing her, sitting with his elbows on his knees and long fingers laced in front of him.

‘Sky, you fell from the pier and drowned three months ago. Remember, you had your birthday party, then ran off after I … look, I saw your body, watched the ambulance crew try to … I watched them
bury
you a week later.’

A moment passed. Then another. Finally, Sky regained the use of her vocal chords.

‘But I
didn’t
fall off the pier. That was just a silly dream, and it was months ago, anyway.’ She took a breath, let it ease out through her teeth. ‘This is stupid!’ She made a sweeping gesture up and down her body. ‘I mean, do I
look
like a corpse?’

He flinched, and she immediately regretted being so flippant. This was Sean. There would be a good reason for how he was behaving – Sky would just have to wait until that reason cartwheeled across the room in front of her.

‘I didn’t drown, Sean. I didn’t fall from the pier. It was just an ordinary kind of nightmare that I woke up from
in my own bed.
And I’m fine. I’ve been fine every day since then.’

Sean bit his lip. ‘How about I make us some coffee or something while we wait for your mum to get here?’ Sky moved to get up, but he shooed her away. ‘I’ll do it. I just … I need to
do
something.’

He disappeared into the kitchen while she sat there listening to the sounds of cupboards opening and closing as he searched for cups and coffee granules, the kettle starting to whistle on the stove. These sounds of
home
were normally so comforting to Sky, but today they felt off. The kettle’s whistle rose unevenly, like someone singing when their throat was clogged with tears.

Sean took a long, long time making the coffee.

2

The lights in the Blood House dimmed, flickered, then went out completely. It only lasted a second before they came back on at full brightness, but it was enough to warn Sky of her mother’s arrival. When Lily Rousseau’s tyres screeched to a halt on the driveway, throwing up gravel onto the porch steps a moment later, Sean came running from the kitchen and went straight out to meet her with barely a glance in Sky’s direction.

‘I’m calling your aunt, Sean Vega! You can’t just break into someone’s house and—’

‘I didn’t break in, Mrs Rousseau. The spare key—’

Sky followed their exchange easily, Sean’s voice carrying smoothly through the open door and her mother’s making up for its lack of bass with excessive volume. ‘I’ll have you locked up for breaking into my home…’

Even Sean’s sigh was audible. Sky could easily imagine him closing his eyes as he tried to fight her insanity with logic. Her mother had that effect on most people.

‘Skylar is inside.’

She couldn’t think why this would stun her mother into silence, but it did. For all of five seconds. Just long enough for Sky to sigh her way from the couch to the front door. It started to swing shut – the house’s way of sheltering Sky from the inevitable Lily-drama – but Sky grabbed the handle and dragged the door back open.

‘You DARE to use my daughter—’

‘Hi, Mum.’

Lily gaped at her daughter like she had sprouted tentacles and slapped her with one. Her mouth opened and closed, emitting no sound while all the blood drained from her face. Which was a shame, as she’d obviously just spent a significant amount of money having it prettified at the salon, her perfect curls curling perfectly around her perfect face. Well, except for the horrified expression.

‘Mum, do you need to sit down?’

This was too much, apparently. Lily’s eyes rolled back in her head and her body crumpled like a windsock with no breeze. It was a testament to Sean’s strength of character that he caught her before she hit the ground.

Of all the unpleasant things Sky might have imagined her death would involve, there were certain mundanities she might have expected to leave behind. Homework, for example. The daily arguments over the indecency of young women wearing jeans. Blackheads.

However it transpired that either she was
not
dead, or she was the unluckiest ghost in the world. Either way, dealing with her mother’s fainting spells remained an unfortunate reality, and the rest looked just as likely to have survived the transition.

‘I’ll get her smelling salts,’ Sky sighed, heading upstairs to search the cabinet in her mother’s bathroom while Sean manoeuvred her onto the couch. Sky didn’t know where her mother had acquired the smelling salts, what with it being the twenty-first century, but Lily ‘fainted’ often enough to justify having them.

When Sky returned, brandishing the salts, she found her mother already somewhat recovered. Sean sat across from her while she sipped a glass of water, her hand shaking so badly it spilled onto her skirt. For once, she didn’t seem to notice the mess.

‘You should talk to Aunt Holly, Mrs Rousseau. After all, the police investigation…’ Sean’s voice trailed off as he noticed Sky.

‘Skylar…’ Lily’s eyes started to roll back again, and Sky darted forward to take the glass from her before she dropped it. A spilled glass of water would put Lily in a foul mood for days.

‘I should call Dad if you’re not well…’

‘You will
not
call your father!’ Lily snapped to attention as though the glass of water had been thrown in her face, her gutter-twang slipping through as she yelled. She huffed for a few seconds before remembering her fragile state – and her affectations. ‘Skylar, darling, how are you … what are you doing here?’

Sky’s eyes darted to Sean as she tried to think of a good reason for her absence from school. ‘I, uh, was feeling a bit sick, so Sean gave me a lift home…’

Lily appeared to remember that Sean was still sitting across the room and scowled at him. ‘Oh. You’re still here, are you? You can leave now.’

‘Mum!’

But Sean had already risen to his feet with a grin. ‘You’re looking particularly lovely this afternoon, Mrs Rousseau. Did you do something new to your hair?’ Lily made a noise so quarrelsome it would have passed for a growl. ‘But you’re right, I should leave you two to talk.’ After one look at Sky’s expression, his face softened. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow, if that’s all right? I know Cam will have heard about you being back by now, and she’ll be dying to see you.’

This was all so very strange. Cam had been Sky’s best friend since she and her brother had moved from
Flint to Blackfin in Year Nine to live with their aunt. Their parents – renowned biochemists whose work had eclipsed their parenting instincts more and more as Sean and Cam got older – had taken off on a three-year expedition to the Himalayas. Or the Jambalayas, according to Cam, whose grasp of geography was less than stellar.

And Sky had seen her all of twelve hours ago. Well, unless she really
was
dead, in which case she had no idea whether the usual laws of time applied.

‘Okay,’ Sky said, not sure how else to respond, and Sean left her alone with her mother, the house creaking in sympathy as the door clicked shut behind him. When she turned back to Lily, her mother’s eyes were still fixed on the closed front door like she was afraid to look at her daughter.

‘What’s going on, Mum?’ Sky asked, and Lily finally looked up. ‘You can’t think I died too.’ She finished this off with an awkward chuckle, finally lapsing into silence.

‘Where did you go?’

‘Go?’

‘You died three months ago, Skylar. Or we all thought you did – the night of your party. And now you show up like nothing happened, I…’ Sky stared in horror as tears,
real
tears, welled in her eyes. For all of Lily’s drama, she tended to hold her tears in reserve for genuinely apocalyptic events – such as Sky’s refusal to wear the Dorothy shoes she had presented her with for school.